Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Castlevania has never been one of my favorite franchises in the past, but these last two lords of shadow installments certainly put it there, Its unfortunate this will be the last entry in this nostalgic world that is lords of shadow. This games' story is not a direct sequel to its predecessor, its actually placed after all the castlevania games so it's not mandatory to play the first lords of shadow in order to understand this one as they will provide you with an option to view how the main events unfolded in between these two. The game has great visuals much like the first but doesn't really build on that so if you liked the first, you'll feel right at home.

Onto the story then. Starting the tutorial in the game, they show you how Draculas' castle is being invaded by soldiers led by the brotherhood of light which Dracula in his previous form as Gabriel Belmont was their prized, most powerful warrior. They also introduce you to all 3 weapons you'll be using throughout the game, your shadow whip, Draculas' main weapon, the void sword, imbued with the ability to life steal, and the chaos claws, which work as an armor breaking solution to shield or heavy armor bearing foes.

Combat is great once you get the hang of it, especially when you learn to alternate between weapons in order to meet the enemys' requirements. Although you must make use of your counter-attacking ability which is done by blocking at the moment an enemy is about to hit you, it's not painfully accurate so if you're worried about timing your block, you will find that the game is pretty forgiving. Most enemies have unblockable attacks which are indicated by an orange glow which is followed by the attack itself which in this case leaves no choice but to resort to dodging. Attacking enemies using the chaos claws or the void sword will deplete the weapons' bars respectively and will need to be replenished by absorbing the red orbs you get from defeating enemies or attacking enemies with the shadow whip after a streak of attacks without taking damage.

In order for the player not use the same move over and over again, they introduced skill mastering. If you use a skill in combat enough times, you'll master it and contribute to leveling up the weapon which in turn increases its base damage which is noticeable if you compare how the weapon was when you got it to how it is at max level. In order to acquire new skills, you must buy them using experience from killing enemies or finding hidden fountains of experience, killing enemies also causes them to sometimes drop relics which are used to help you during fights or treasure hunting.

You will come across sections where you'll be required to sneak past enemies using the different powers of Dracula that have never been used before, which is probably the reason they put them in the first place. Those abilities include turning into a pack of rats when standing in a dark corner which allows you to reach secret areas you couldn't get to in your full form, you can use bats to distract guards and such, you can turn into mist which counts as being invisible in the eyes of the enemy, and finally you get to posses enemies approached from behind to control them into performing a task and finally killing them as you leave their bodies. These sections are more like puzzles as there is only one way to get past and that's all what you need to figure out.

After the brotherhood of light invasion on Draculas' castle, you awake in the present time, meaning slept for a thousand years and woke up in the age of cars and televisions, this will cause some confusion but will ultimately be explained later on. The world is divided into districts or areas, unlike the previous one which had chapters which you could pick from at all times. There are two worlds you'll be playing in, the past which takes place in Draculas' castle and the present. As you progress through the game, you will find ways to travel from one era to another, and from one area to another as well.

As I've read about other Castlevanias, apparently this wouldn't be one without collectibles scattered through the eras. The collectibles here are pretty generic for a hack'n'slash, such as gems that increase your maximum health,chaos and void bars, as well as soldier diaries and monuments which count as lore if you're interested in learning about the dead soldiers in the past or the monumental areas in the present. There are also some collectibles that unlock challenges for you when found. These challenges are what I considered to be the only challenge I faced in the game, playing through the story on Prince of Darkness difficulty was a cakewalk and didn't really require much effort.

A couple of things that ticked me off were that there are boss fights around every corner, but less than a handful felt interesting to me, and believe me when I tell you that the final boss fight was not one of these fights. I was so disappointed by the last boss because I was getting ready to actually face something interesting but instead got a slap in the face by the credits and was definitely left wanting more, I played the revelations dlc but it did not fill the void, only the chaos....Okay, that was uncalled for.

So although I was very disappointed with how the game was concluded, it wouldn't be fair to let that overshadow the other aspects in the game that were actually done well, so lets sum this up.

I completed the game in a 3-4 days and got all the achievements including the dlc ones, I give the game an 8/10 because even though there are cons such as these, I still enjoyed the game thoroughly and hope to see more games carrying the Castlevania name . Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed reading my review of Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2.